Sunday, February 24, 2013

With the Daytona
500 today, it is an appropriate time to analyze the meteoric growth of NASCAR
over the last three decades. As late as the mid-1980s, open wheel racing
(Indy cars) reigned supreme over stock cars (NASCAR) and the Indianapolis
500—not Daytona— was the most popular race in the country. Mario Andretti
and A.J. Foyt, not Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt, Sr., were the most famous
drivers in the nation. In the last 30 years, though, stock car racing has
surpassed open wheel racing, evolving from a regional sport based in the rural
South to a national phenomenon with fanatical supporters across America.

According to
legend, NASCAR’s rise began with the dramatic conclusion to the 1979 Daytona
500, which was the first to air live on network television. A major
snowstorm on the East Coast left many trapped inside and some viewers who would
not normally have watched tuned in out of curiosity. Following the
conclusion of the race, won by Petty, drivers Cale Yarborough and Bobby and
Donnie Alison got into a fistfight over a last lap crash, bringing new
attention to this sport. Just as 1958’s “Greatest Game Ever Played”
between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants spurred football to new
heights, the ’79 Daytona launched NASCAR. See http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-football-came-to-dominate-america.html

Over the next two
decades, led by charismatic drivers such as Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, and
Jeff Gordon, NASCAR became one of the most popular sports in the country, with
ratings only surpassed by the NFL. Like football, auto racing’s ratings
were augmented by its once-a-week format, but that does not diminish the
sport’s incredible rise. Meanwhile, internecine disputes in Indy car
racing split the sport into rival camps and many top drivers did not race in
the Indianapolis 500 for several years, leaving the auto racing market to
NASCAR alone.

NASCAR’s growth
also reflected the rise of the South during the time. As the region’s
population expanded, so did its influence on American culture. Other
traditionally southern phenomenon, like country music, developed crossover
appeal. Since the Reagan era, the political conservatism and religiosity
of the region has often seemed more reflective of the country than the
liberalism and relative secularism of New England. By the 1990s, some
discussed the “Southernization of America,” as Arkansas’ Bill Clinton,
Georgia’s Newt Gingrich, and Mississippi’s Trent Lott, served as President,
Speaker of the House, and Senate Majority Leader, respectively (Applebome, Dixie
Rising).

Dale Earnhardt,
Sr.’s death in a crash during the 2001 Daytona 500 precipitated Princess
Di-style mourning below the Mason-Dixon line. At the same time, some in
the North scratched their heads over the emotional reaction. I’ll never
forget where I was when I found out that “The Intimidator” had died: the Upper
West Side of Manhattan. The local news declared “tragedy strikes as a
legend dies at Daytona.” Though I can count on my hands the number of
NASCAR races I’ve watched, as a sports fan I immediately blurted out, “Oh my
G-D, did Dale Earnhardt die?” My Manhattan friends seemed totally
nonplussed and refused to even let me watch the sports segment to find out what
had happened. It was a reflection of the cultural chasm that still
exists, as NASCAR is very popular across a broad swath of the nation, except
for a few bastions of blue America. As a perceptive friend of mine said
later, the circumstances surrounding Earnhardt’s death were unbelievable, the
equivalent of Michael Jordan dying during Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Paradoxically, the
period following Earnhardt’s crash may have been the sport’s peak. In
2004, “NASCAR dads” replaced “soccer moms” as the swing voters fawned over by
presidential candidates and the national media alike. President George W.
Bush campaigned for re-election at the 2004 Daytona 500, opening the race by
declaring, “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

While “The
Intimdator’s” death brought new attention to the sport, it also sparked a
greater awareness of its dangers. NASCAR instituted new safety guidelines
that have helped prevent any deaths since 2001, though some have suggested
these measures have reduced the excitement of the races. Over the last
decade, the sport’s popularity has declined as attendance has slipped and
television ratings have come back to earth a bit.

It is not just the
new safety measures, however, that have caused the sport to plateau.
NASCAR began as a working-class sport in the rural South, but the sports’
leadership pushed to attract a more upscale demographic. Races at some of
the older tracks have been abandoned in favor of larger venues, alienating some
of the sports’ traditional fans, often called “gearheads.” Since Earnhardt,
Sr.’s death, no driver has emerged to replace him as someone that fans either
love or hate. Jimmie Johnson has dominated the sport in (old) Tigeresque
fashion in recent years, winning five consecutive championships between
2006-2010. But he doesn’t seem to elicit strong emotions either way from
the “gearheads.”

As the 2013 race
commences, NASCAR could be on the verge of a resurgence. After
moving from Indy cars to stock cars, Danica Patrick won the pole position for
this year’s event and her celebrity may bring unprecedented interested in the
“Great American Race.” Regardless, NASCAR has come a long way since its early
days of moonshine and dirt tracks.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

In
this week’s episode, “In Control,” the action revolves around John Hinckley’s
unsuccessful attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life on March 30, 1981, which
was the last time an assassin fired a shot at a U.S. president. Elizabeth and the Soviet embassy massively overreact,
seeing Secretary of State Al Haig’s infamous press conference where he declared,
“I’m in control” in the confused moments after the shooting as a precursor to a
coup and a U.S. first strike. Meanwhile,
the FBI checks to see if the would-be assassin has any links to the Russians.

Hinckley
shot Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton after giving a speech to organized
labor. In the midst of the fusillade of
gunfire, a Secret Service agent pushed the president into a limousine and
Reagan was hit by a bullet as it ricochet off the car and into his chest. Though the president thought he had broken a
rib, the agent ordered the motorcade to George Washington University hospital
when Reagan began to cough up blood. At
the hospital, Reagan entered under his own power, only to fall to his knees
inside. Doctors discovered a bullet
wound and prepared the president for emergency surgery. Reagan earned plaudits for his humor and
composure under trying circumstances, famously telling Nancy “Honey, I forgot
to duck” and the surgical team that “he hoped they were all Republicans.” “Today
we’re all Republicans,” responded the doctors.

Vice
President George H. W. Bush was on a flight to Texas and there was confusion in
Washington surrounding the president’s condition. Fearing that the government was sending a
mixed message during a period of international turmoil, Haig addressed the
press, declaring:

Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the
President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State in that order, and
should the President decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Vice
President, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here,
in the White House, pending return of the Vice President and in close touch
with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.

With
this statement, Haig seemed to misunderstand the succession procedure
proscribed by the 25th amendment, where the speaker of the House was
third in line and the secretary of state was fifth. He later claimed he was talking about where
authority in the government laid, not presidential succession. Though Haig had held the government together
as President Nixon’s chief of staff in the difficult final days of Watergate,
this moment became the defining moment of his career.

In
the “Americans,” Haig’s bizarre comments are interpreted as an attempt by the
military or hawkish elements of the government to mount a coup, rather than as
a career-destroying gaffe. Hearing bits
and pieces from their bug at Secretary of Defense Weinberger’s house, Elizabeth
believes an attack on the Soviet Union may be imminent. Philip cautions they should wait to alert
Moscow until they have definitive proof.
In fact, while American officials were concerned that Soviet subs were
slightly closer than usual to the U.S. coast that day, there was no talk of an
attack (Allen, “The Atlantic,” April 2001).

Another
real-life detail that was accurately repeated in the episode was that the media
erroneously reported the death of White House press secretary James Brady. Though wounded severely, Brady survived,
albeit with permanent brain damage. He
and his wife Sarah become strong advocates for gun control, and the “Brady
bill,” which President Clinton signed in 1993 and mandated background checks
for individuals purchasing guns, bears their name. Some have compared former Arizona
congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who suffered similar wounds in a 2011 shooting
and recently testified in favor of gun control before Congress, to Brady.

By
the episode’s conclusion, Stan, the FBI agent who conveniently lives across the
street from Elizabeth and Philip, has discovered that the Russians had nothing
to do with the shooting. He informs them
that Hinckley was a nut who though the shooting would impress an actress (Jodie
Foster). As a result, Elizabeth seems to
have newfound respect for her husband’s restraint.

Though
he lost a great deal of blood and was much closer to death than understood at
the time, Reagan recovered from his wound.
Today, the attempt is largely forgotten because the “Gipper” survived, but
it was likely a trying day for many Americans, with memories of the Kennedy
assassination less than two decades earlier still fresh. Indeed, the previous
20 years had witnessed a series of political assassinations and assassination
attempts, including the murders of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and
Malcolm X. In addition, a crazed gunman
shot presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972, paralyzing him for the rest
of his life; there were two unsuccessful attempts to shoot President Gerald Ford.

Hinckley
was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental hospital
and the shooting had a significant impact on the Reagan presidency. In the
short term, the nation rallied behind the him and his recovery, helping him build the public support necessary to pass the large tax cut that was the central element of his economic
program. In the long term, according to
Reagan biographer Edmund Morris, it reinforced Reagan’s religiosity as well as
his sense of destiny. (PBS’ American Experience, “Reagan”)

Saturday, February 16, 2013

In
the episode, we discover that Elizabeth has engaged in a long-standing affair
with Gregory, an African-American man she recruited into the KGB in the
1960s. He tells Philip that she
recruited him at an SCLC meeting in Chicago during Martin Luther King’s
campaign in the Second City. SCLC stands
for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King’s organization of
Southern ministers. Having defeated de
jure segregation in the South with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
Voting Rights Act of 1965, King and SCLC left their traditional base in the south
in 1966 and moved north to Chicago to battle the problem of de facto
segregation.

The
Chicago campaign focused on opening up housing for blacks outside of the city’s
ghetto neighborhoods on the south and west side. Lacking a clear enemy like Bull Connor in
Birmingham or Jim Clark in Selma, King was outmaneuvered by Mayor Richard J.
Daley and couldn’t generate the same national support he had in campaigns in
the Deep South. Eventually, King
negotiated a symbolic agreement with Daley regarding housing and left in
defeat. After seeing the intense bigotry
of working-class whites in the North, he became much more pessimistic about the
possibility of overcoming racism in America.

The
Gregory character also illustrates how American racism made communism
attractive to a small number of blacks.
In the 1930s, the American Communist Party gained prestige in the African
American community because of its strong defense of the Scottsboro Boys, a
group of black teenagers accused of raping white women on a train in
Alabama. At various times, prominent
black Americans joined the party, including Paul Robeson, Bayard Rustin, and
W.E.B. Du Bois. Some, like Rustin, left
because they didn’t believe the party’s commitment to racial justice was genuine.

With
her relationship with Philip now resembling more of a real marriage, Elizabeth
ended the affair with Gregory.
Meanwhile, the KGB moved closer to getting their hands on the plans for
“Star Wars.”

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

In
the second episode of “The Americans,” Elizabeth and Phillip, the two Soviet
spies living the life of an all-American family in the D.C. suburbs, engage in
a risky plot to bug the Secretary of Defense.
In doing so, they discover the early stirrings of President Reagan’s “Star
Wars” program, which some believe contributed to the end of the Cold War.

In a
piece of skullduggery worthy of a John Le Carre novel, the agents poison the son
of Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger’s maid. They then give her an ultimatum to bug his
house in return for the antidote. A
primary architect of the Reagan defense buildup, Weinberger served as Defense
Secretary from 1981 to 1987. The KGB
wants to eavesdrop on Weinberger’s upcoming meeting with British Defense
Minister John Nott.

Despite
the threat to her son’s life, the maid is reluctant to plant the bug. Not trusting Elizabeth and Philip, she says
she puts her faith in God and asks if Philip is afraid of him/her. Philip replies no, revealing the Cold War
divide between the state-sponsored atheism of the USSR and the deep religiosity
of many Americans.

Once
the maid places the bug in a clock, the final scene of the episode reveals the
discussion between Weinberger and his British counterpart. The two cabinet officers note the close
relationship between President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher. Both were leaders of the right
in their respective countries and many see the victory of Thatcher’s Conservative
Party over the Labor Party in 1979 as a precursor to the Republican Reagan’s
defeat of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Following
this exchange, the British Defense Minister expresses his support for Reagan’s
proposed anti-ballistic missile shield, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI),
which would become popularly known as “Star Wars.” Inspired by his acting career
in Hollywood, Reagan proposed a shield in space that would be able to shoot down
Soviet nuclear weapons, rendering their considerable arsenal irrelevant. Though a military hawk, Reagan was deeply
disturbed by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) that had
governed American nuclear policy since the 1950s. With his desire to end the threat of nuclear
holocaust, the “Gipper” shared common cause with his domestic opponents in the
burgeoning nuclear freeze movement.

In
reality, however, Reagan did not propose SDI until 1983 and I don’t believe he
was discussing it with the European allies in 1981. In fact, when he made his speech announcing
“Star Wars,” many NATO members feared Regan’s break with the longstanding MAD
policy.

Still,
some credit “Star Wars” with accelerating the end of the U.S./Soviet
conflict. Though most Western scientists
thought the missile shield unfeasible, many Russian military leaders believed
that it was not beyond American capabilities.
Having seen the tremendous accomplishments of American science in the
Manhattan Project and the Apollo space program, some supported Mikhail
Gorbachev’s reforms in the mid-1980s as part of an effort to modernize Soviet
technology to compete with the US. Gorbachev
made American abandonment of SDI a major demand during arms control
negotiations between the superpowers, notably at the 1986 summit in Reykjavik,
Iceland, when the two leaders flirted with getting rid of their nuclear
arsenals, much to the chagrin of Reagan’s advisers.

After
the first two episodes, the espionage elements of the show are considerably
more interesting than the family life of the main characters. So far, though, there is more than enough to
keep me interested.